ABC Cites Restaurant

Beijing owner is charged with two misdemeanors.

The Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) has cited a Centreville restaurant for illegally possessing and selling alcoholic beverages on its premises.

Two summonses were issued Friday to Min Zhen Qiu, owner of the Beijing Restaurant at 5635 Stone Road, after both a sting operation and a search warrant were executed there last month.

Acting undercover, Special Agent A. Baker Goodman, with ABC's Alexandria regional office, went to the restaurant on March 13, around 1 p.m. In a March 15 affidavit for a search warrant to obtain further evidence of wrongdoing, he detailed what happened there, two days earlier.

He explained that he saw a Beijing waitress allegedly serve alcohol to one of the Virginia ABC Board's underage buyers. As a result, Goodman arrested the waitress, on the spot, charging her with the illegal sale of alcohol to someone not yet 21.

Then, once he returned to his office, he investigated further and discovered that the Beijing Restaurant reportedly does not have a license to sell alcohol on its premises. He went back there March 19, armed with a search warrant, and confiscated 117 bottles of beer, as well as various tax and bank documents and a stack of guest checks.

The ABC didn't immediately cite Beijing's owner; but once its investigation was completed, it returned Friday, April 5, and issued to summonses to Qiu.

Phil Disharoon, assistant special agent in charge, of the Alexandria ABC office, said she was cited for keeping alcoholic beverages on the premises of a restaurant not licensed to do so. He also said she was cited for aiding and abetting the illegal sale of alcohol at an unlicensed establishment.

Qiu did not have to go to the Adult Detention Center, but she does have to appear May 1 in Fairfax County General District Court to answer to the two charges. Each one is a class I misdemeanor, punishable by as much as a year in jail and/or a $2,500 fine.